Are Men Superior to Women?

00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, here's today's question. Hello Pastor John, my name is Jennifer and I live on a Long Island. I have a question about complementarianism

00:00:07.460 | It is something I've struggled with for a long time and it is something I need to have worked out before even considering a relationship

00:00:13.980 | Or marriage in the future

00:00:15.120 | I know the Bible clearly states that men and women are equal in their standing before God as far as salvation

00:00:21.160 | But in all other areas of life, I still struggle with the feelings of inferiority because of certain comparisons used in the Bible

00:00:28.960 | for example regarding submission

00:00:30.960 | The Bible says that the servant is not greater than his master and wives are called to submit to their husbands as the church submits

00:00:37.840 | to Christ

00:00:38.500 | However, servants are not equal to their masters and the church is not equal in worth to Christ in almost every area of life

00:00:45.760 | Those in positions of authority are considered more valuable than those under that authority

00:00:51.840 | Just like the president is more valuable than the secret servicemen and in businesses

00:00:56.480 | Managers are more valued than the workers under them and throughout history women have always been treated as less valuable than men

00:01:02.900 | In light of these things, I greatly struggle with feeling inferior in worth to men

00:01:08.120 | Is there something that you might be able to see that I am missing as I read through Scripture? Thank you.

00:01:14.660 | I want to tackle the two

00:01:17.240 | particular kinds of texts that trouble Jennifer in just a moment, but first

00:01:23.500 | Let me venture a general statement about female superiority and inferiority and male

00:01:29.900 | superiority and

00:01:32.780 | inferiority in relationship to each other. I

00:01:35.360 | think most of the time we are so eager to say the appropriate thing about equality

00:01:43.180 | that we overlook the obvious

00:01:46.240 | inequalities that exist between men and women. So how should we speak about these?

00:01:52.380 | I'm thinking of things like

00:01:54.380 | In general men are physically stronger so that in the Olympics in most events men and women don't compete with each other

00:02:03.540 | or things like women being superior at singing soprano or bearing children or nursing children and my guess is if

00:02:12.500 | objectivity were possible in the research, which in our politically correct day

00:02:19.780 | I don't think it is, but if objectivity were possible in the research

00:02:23.720 | there would be countless studies about nuanced

00:02:28.740 | psychological, verbal, analytical, synthetic, emotional

00:02:32.900 | differences between men and women in general that in some areas would give

00:02:38.180 | woman the edge and in other areas would give man the edge. I think those those studies probably have been done and buried because

00:02:46.740 | they would be offensive perhaps. I don't know, but that's my opinion. So here's my theological

00:02:52.500 | bottom line on this matter. If God were to make a

00:02:59.060 | list of female

00:03:02.020 | superiorities and

00:03:04.620 | inferiorities and a list of male

00:03:06.620 | superiorities and inferiorities, and if God were to attach to each of these a relative value in

00:03:14.940 | his whole scheme of things

00:03:16.940 | the sum of the pluses and minuses at the bottom of each column would be equal.

00:03:25.580 | Now I can't prove that and I don't think anybody can disprove that. I infer it

00:03:33.380 | from one, male and female are both created in the image of God. Two,

00:03:39.700 | both are fellow heirs of the grace of life. Three, both are given an

00:03:44.660 | indispensable role in the achievement of God's ultimate purposes. Four,

00:03:48.940 | Paul seems to be thinking this way in 1st Corinthians 11, 11, and 12 when he says, "In the Lord woman is not

00:03:57.420 | independent of man

00:04:00.260 | nor

00:04:01.620 | man of woman. For as woman was made from man,

00:04:07.620 | so man is now born of woman, and all things are from God." So he seems to be bent on

00:04:15.780 | affirming

00:04:18.100 | difference and

00:04:20.060 | affirming that with every difference there is a kind of counterpoint of

00:04:25.220 | indispensability.

00:04:27.300 | Now I hope that one of the effects all those thoughts have on

00:04:33.660 | Jennifer and others who struggle with the same thing she's feeling is that

00:04:39.380 | she wouldn't have to be

00:04:42.140 | artificial in her thinking about male and female differences in order to believe in profound, ultimate, overall, God-designed

00:04:50.700 | equality. It's not a simple thing like

00:04:56.060 | insisting that women are as good at everything as men are or men are as good at everything as women are. They're not.

00:05:04.100 | Neither man is nor woman is.

00:05:06.860 | Jennifer mentions two texts that have really troubled her, and I think I get it, and so let me try to help.

00:05:15.180 | Two times, this is one kind of text, but two instances, Jesus says, John 13, 16 and John 15, 20, "A

00:05:23.980 | servant is not greater than his master." And since servants are to be submissive

00:05:30.540 | to masters and wives to husbands, this makes Jennifer feel inferior or less

00:05:37.140 | great. A servant is not as great as the master. But notice two things. One,

00:05:44.820 | servants may indeed be greater than their masters in many ways.

00:05:52.060 | They may be stronger, more intelligent, wiser,

00:05:55.740 | kinder, more industrious. And Jesus knew that as well as we do.

00:06:02.260 | The other thing to notice is that in the context,

00:06:06.300 | Jesus's point in both those passages is not to comment on the absence of a servant's

00:06:14.900 | equality, but the absence of the servant's superiority.

00:06:20.220 | In the first case, he did this. He emphasizes this to stress that the servant

00:06:28.180 | should do the same kind of foot washing that Jesus did. And in the second case, to stress that the servant should expect the same

00:06:36.780 | persecution that Jesus did. So the point,

00:06:40.980 | surprisingly, is to stress the

00:06:45.300 | equality of the service to be rendered and the equality of the persecution to be experienced. Not that slaves are in every way,

00:06:53.540 | or in some overall way, inferior to masters. The second text that troubles

00:06:59.380 | Jennifer is the comparison between marriage and the relationship between Christ and the church. Wives are to submit to husbands as

00:07:07.020 | the church does to Christ, Ephesians 5. But, she observes rightly, the church is not equal

00:07:15.140 | in worth to Christ.

00:07:17.580 | Now,

00:07:19.900 | what I would ask Jennifer to consider here is whether the point of comparison

00:07:27.740 | between Christ and the church, on the one hand, and

00:07:32.700 | husband and wife, on the other hand, whether the point of comparison is

00:07:37.900 | the degree of

00:07:41.700 | inferiority or superiority. Is that the point?

00:07:44.740 | Clearly, Christ is sinless, and

00:07:48.420 | the church is sinful. Is that the point of comparison? Husband sinless, wife sinful?

00:07:54.660 | Clearly, Christ is

00:07:57.020 | infinite and eternal, and the husband is finite, and I mean the church is finite and temporal. Is that the point of comparison?

00:08:04.020 | Husband's infinite,

00:08:06.300 | wife's finite. We have to be so careful with analogies or comparisons, lest we assume a

00:08:14.740 | point of comparison that is not the point of comparison that is being shown.

00:08:20.780 | Now, I would say—this is my venture to try to understand—I would say that the point of the

00:08:29.380 | comparison between Christ and the church here, and husband and wife here, is

00:08:35.460 | that owing to creation and

00:08:37.780 | God's design for it—

00:08:40.740 | Genesis 2:24 is cited right here in Ephesians 5:31—

00:08:45.020 | owing to God's design in creation, the point of comparison is that

00:08:51.580 | godly,

00:08:53.620 | mature manhood and womanhood are of such a nature

00:08:58.420 | that they both experience a sense of fitness and

00:09:03.860 | suitableness and appropriateness in the roles of

00:09:08.140 | manhood as humble leadership and protection and provision, and womanhood as

00:09:13.540 | gladly affirming that leadership and partnering with a man in the use of her gifts to carry it through. And

00:09:19.260 | whether that fitness—whether that fitness

00:09:22.500 | lies in some overall superiority or inferiority

00:09:28.780 | need not be implied in this text about husbands and wives, I don't think it is

00:09:34.820 | implied. So, I pray that God would give to Jennifer and many, I'm sure, who feel

00:09:43.620 | what she feels—a

00:09:46.060 | wonderful sense of peace in who she is in Christ, with all the glorious things that

00:09:53.620 | in Christ implies for his care and her value and her

00:09:58.820 | inheritance, and I pray that she would find the teaching of the Bible on manhood and womanhood

00:10:06.660 | liberating and

00:10:09.140 | satisfying rather than

00:10:11.020 | troubling.

00:10:11.980 | Yes, amen. Thank you, Pastor John, for this answer and for explaining

00:10:16.260 | complementarity for decades, and now to a new generation of young Christians who are now thinking through these issues with an eye towards marriage

00:10:23.300 | compatibility and

00:10:24.580 | who want to know how we can honor God in our homes and churches without simply following the intuition so often cultivated by the

00:10:31.460 | prevailing winds of the age in which we live. I appreciate that, Pastor John. And with that, the week has come to a close on

00:10:38.980 | Monday. We're gonna look at Romans 8. Specifically, what does it mean that God will glorify us?

00:10:44.300 | What in the world does that mean?

00:10:46.420 | You've been listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast, longtime author and pastor John Piper.

00:10:50.740 | You can find our audio feeds and you can find our archive of old episodes all at our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:10:57.460 | I'm your host Tony Ranke. Have a great weekend.

00:11:02.940 | [END]

00:11:04.940 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Are Men Superior to Women?

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